


Suppose

by Mireille



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-05-17
Updated: 2004-05-17
Packaged: 2018-08-16 18:37:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8113015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mireille/pseuds/Mireille
Summary: Suppose you can get what you want.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a challenge in which the summary, above, was my prompt.

Suppose you can get what you want.

Suppose you can make time repeat itself, and this time, you collect your messages at the hotel in Tokyo. You forget about that geisha, talented though she is, and make your way back to the 4077th as quickly as you can.

There's no one in the Swamp but you and Trapper, now that Frank's moved into Henry's old tent, and so there's no one to see that you wrap yourself around him, burying your face in his curls. You don't say anything, and neither does he. There aren't any words that can make this okay.

You hate him for leaving Korea when you're stuck here. You hate him for leaving you. Except you can't hate him, you love him too much--but it's always felt just as raw and desperate and angry as any hatred ever could, because you've always known you'll have to give him up.

When he kisses you, you bite his lip hard enough to draw blood. 

He doesn't ask what got into you. He knows. 

***  
Suppose you finagle your way into the Jeep with Trapper and Radar. You don't say anything much on the drive, not until Radar asks, nervously, if you're carsick. You're kind of green, he says, and Major Burns will kill him if he brings the Jeep back smelling like vomit.

You've been staring at Trapper's lower lip, the one you left bruised, and now you do feel sick, because you know that it'll probably be the only reason he remembers you once he's on that plane. 

You tell Radar you're fine, anyway. Radar wouldn't be able to understand this no matter how hard he tried.

You could be worse, anyway. At least you're getting to tell Trapper goodbye.

***

Suppose you refuse to watch Trapper get on the plane. You keep thinking about Henry, and as much as you don't want Trapper to leave you, you do want him to get home alive. At least this way he's out there, somewhere, and that's enough for you.

It's all you get, so it has to be.

You pretend you don't hear Radar asking where you and Trapper disappeared to when you first got there. You pretend everything's A-OK and that was only your best friend you just told good-bye.

You pretend you don't recognize the feeling of your heart breaking.

***

Suppose that instead of Radar's reluctant, ridiculous delivery of Trapper's farewell "message," Trapper gives it to you himself, in the supply closet of the building you ducked into when Radar wasn't looking. His kisses are long and slow and hungry, and you have to think of Frank Burns in his undershorts before you can conquer the urge to slam Trapper up against the flimsy prefab wall and break a couple of commandments and a billion U.S. Army regulations, one last time. 

You think of it all the way back to camp, and you actually smile.

***

Suppose you wake up every morning and realize that you were just a few minutes too late for any of that. 

And then you realize it's getting hard to remember Trapper's voice, and the anger that's been simmering inside you since you were sent to this hell just burns hotter. 

You always knew you'd have to give him up one day. You'd understood that. You just hadn't known it was going to feel like you were giving up yourself in the process.


End file.
